Conor Friedersdorf: No excuse to put off quake preparedness

A man uses a garden hose to cool hot spots from a fire at a mobile home park following a 6.0 earthquake Sunday in Napa. The quake rocked the San Francisco Bay Area shortly, doing billions in damage. JUSTIN SULLIVAN, GETTY IMAGES

When there is an earthquake in California, like the 6.0 magnitude temblor that struck Napa this week, Golden State residents can count on concerned but faraway relatives to call, text or email: “Just checking on you,” they say. “Hope people, pets and plates are okay!” These touching missives can get exasperating if received in sufficient numbers, at least if the earthquake in question is tiny or hundreds of miles from one’s home. It can be tempting to remind folks who’ve never come west that our states aren’t puny like theirs.

But it is better to take their inquiries as a reminder that the next quake might well be centered beneath our very feet. On seeing the news from Napa, I mentally ran through my family’s check list. Emergency supplies in the closet? Check. Another set in the trunk? Check. Anything big enough to crush a person that’s not bolted to the wall? Nope. As an individual, preparing for an earthquake has never been easier. Search for emergency preparedness supplies on Amazon.com. Choose whatever is rated best by other customers. If you’ve got a credit card, they’ll deliver it right to your door. There is no excuse to procrastinate.

Unfortunately, there’s a limit to what we can do, as individuals, to prepare for natural disasters, and reason to doubt that state leaders have done as much preparation as is prudent. The most devastating earthquake in California history, the San Francisco temblor of 1906, killed around 3,000 people, more than died during the September 11 terrorist attacks. One way to conceive of relative risk, going forward, is that terrorists might attempt to kill Californians in a future mass casualty attack, whereas another big earthquake is a geological certainty. It isn’t a matter of if it will happen, only a matter of when.

Yet earthquake safety isn’t a public policy priority, because humans are poor at assessing risks that unfold in geologic time.

That isn’t to say that we haven’t prepared at all since 1906. The state’s infrastructure is much improved, its fire protection plans more sophisticated, and its building codes much stricter. Compared to most earthquake zones on the planet, we’re well prepared to ride out a large quake with relatively few deaths. The worst earthquakes in recent years have killed dozens, not hundreds, let alone thousands. On the other hand, more than 1,000 buildings in Los Angeles alone have been identified by experts as being at risk of collapse. The failure of such structures caused thousands of deaths during a 1995 earthquake in Japan, and scores more during the recent earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand.

There, but for more seismic retrofitting, go we. And casualties could be much worse. A major earthquake on the San Andreas fault could cause more than 1,800 deaths and displace tens of thousands of people, according to the United States Geological Survey. “Adding to the mayhem and damage are the 1,600 fires feared possible after a large-scale earthquake,” Insurance Journal noted in 2012, “particularly in East Los Angeles and North Orange County, where there are a large number of wood-frame buildings.” In the worst-case scenario, basics like water service could be interrupted for as long as six months. And if you live close to the coast, have you ever looked at the tsunami maps to see if you’re in a danger zone?

Modest investments in infrastructure and emergency preparedness now could save a lot of effort, heartache and even lives later. And it isn’t as if this issue is ideologically polarizing, with conservatives and liberals putting off action because they disagree about the best course. When it comes to earthquake safety, it’s just a matter of investing the time and money. We don’t do it because we’re shortsighted risk-takers, not far-sighted planners. Sometimes that attitude is rewarded. Sometimes the man who fails to buy health insurance is healthy all his life and quietly dies of old age in his sleep. But again, there’s literally no chance that there won’t be a significant quake in Southern California, eventually.

Why not do more to get ready?

Staff opinion columnist Conor Friedersdorf also is a staff writer for the Atlantic.

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